June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Should they win control of the U.S.
Senate and the White House in November, Republicans say they
would consider using a fast-track budget process to repeal parts
of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health-care overhaul.

“In the House we are prepared to do that and I’m sure if
you speak to my colleagues in the Senate they are as well,”
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said
today in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “This is a big
deal for the American people. Health care is one of the most
personal decisions that families make, that’s what at stake
here.”

The fast-track budget procedure, known as reconciliation,
allows lawmakers to bypass a Senate filibuster by lowering the
threshold for passage of certain legislation in that chamber
from 60 votes to a simple majority.

Cantor’s comments came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld the core of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act, ruling that Congress has the authority to require
Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty.

House Republican leaders immediately announced that the
chamber, which has voted 30 times to eliminate, defund or scale
back parts or all of the health-care law, will vote again July
11 on repeal. Days after taking control of the House in January
2011, all of the chamber’s Republicans and three Democrats voted
to pass a measure ending the health-care law.

Senate Majority

Efforts to repeal or chip away at the health-care law have
died in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats have a 53-seat
majority.

Republicans say the best chance for success in their repeal
efforts lies in winning control of the Senate and electing
Republican Mitt Romney as president in November.

Even then it would be a challenge to muster the 60 votes
needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.
Republicans could try to bypass a filibuster by using the
reconciliation process.

“There have never been 60 popularly elected Republican
senators,” said Senator Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, in an
interview. “So whatever we’re able to do legislatively in the
Senate, reconciliation becomes really important.”

Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said, “It’s
always better if you can deal with something in a normal
legislative fashion,” adding that it was premature to discuss
options for repeal in 2013 without knowing the outcome of the
election.

‘Just Talk’

“Right now, until we know what the makeup of the Senate’s
going to be this next year and who’s president, all the talk is
just that, just talk,” Corker said in an interview.

The House’s chief tax writer, Ways and Means Committee
Chairman Dave Camp, today didn’t rule out the possibility of
using reconciliation to repeal the law if Republicans were to
control both chambers of Congress and the White House next year.

“I’d like to repeal the bill,” Camp, a Michigan
Republican, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s
“Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “And
I’d like to do it however we can, because I do think it -- this
-- imposing the federal government between individuals and their
doctors is still wrong. And just because something’s
constitutional doesn’t make it a good law.”

Gallup Poll

A nationwide USA Today-Gallup poll of 1,012 adults surveyed
after yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling showed a 46-46 percent
split on whether they agreed with the decision. Seventy-nine
percent of Democrats agreed with the ruling, 83 percent of
Republicans disagreed, and independents were split with 45
percent in favor and 42 percent opposing the decision.

Democrats, who controlled the House and Senate in 2009 and
2010 when Congress was considering the health care law, turned
to reconciliation to pass the law after they lost their 60-seat
Senate majority in January 2010 with the election of
Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown.

In both chambers of Congress, Democrats provided all of the
votes for the health-care measure. They lost control of the
House in the 2010 midterm elections.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told
reporters yesterday that the prospect of a Republican-controlled
Senate using the fast-track process to push repeal was “all the
more reason that the American people should understand” that
Democrats “want to focus on jobs, not taking away benefits that
millions of Americans have today for sure.”

Policy Provisions

Because reconciliation applies only to measures that affect
spending or revenue, many policy provisions in the health-care
law probably would fall outside the scope of it, meaning the
tool could be used to repeal part, not all, of the law.

Though Democrats control the Senate’s agenda, Republicans
in the chamber have pledged to press ahead with repeal efforts.

“Yesterday’s decision gives us the clearest proof yet that
this bill has to go,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a
Kentucky Republican, said today. “It needs to be repealed to
clear the way for common sense, step-by-step reforms that
protect Americans’ access to the care they need, from the doctor
they choose, at a lower cost. And that’s precisely what
Republicans intend to.”